The CGI was superb, pity the acting/story was awful!

Rating: 7/10 (6 October 2013)

I gave this movie 5/10 and that was basically for the CGI which was fantastic, best i've seen for a few years. It's hard to believe the story which was so simplistic and childlike at best was incorporated into a Guillermo Del Toro movie. A man whose imagination and direction are his genius clearly dried up for this release. Basically monsters from another dimension come through to earth and the world creates giant robots called Jaegers to fight them, yes folks that's it! The gaps in between the awesome fight scenes are filled by the most tedious dialogue and acting you could imagine. Charlie Hunnam who is English clearly has only one American Accent and OTT swagger and each scene he is involved in looks straight from Sons of Anarchy. Idris Elba got real plaudits from critics for this despite showing no screen presence or emotion throughout the movie. The most annoying character is Dr Newton (Charlie Day) whose high pitched screech of a voice provides constant "nails on a chalkboard" irritation in every scene he appears. It's clear Del Toro and team aimed this character as a crazy/funny genius but this fails miserably and he ruins every scene with his overacting screaming.
Del Toro also had a brainwave that instead of having the English spoken Hansen duo (father and son) talk in their normal English accent for the movie he would have them speaking like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Having saw both actors in other roles they don't speak like that in real life so much so as a Brit i could barely make out what they were saying. All of these problems wrapped around a poor script with no big name actor to carry the movie gave it a limited release 'B' movie feel. Had it not been for the truly awesome CGI, cityscapes and fight scenes popping up now and again this movie would have been a blot on Del Toro's resume. God only knows how they spent $180m on this.
In a sentence, no superstar actor, 'C' class bit part actors managing to overact a poor script/story with the CGI saving it from total embarrassment.